John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Weekend playlist: Squeeze to play

I've spent another week hooked on blip.fm, which is kind of like the Twitter of online radio. You can find me here; send me a note if you have an account and tell me where to find you. Here are some of the songs I've been blaring out of my laptop this weekend. For each song, I've linked to the "blip" so you can listen for yourself; the links are all current as of now, but as Blip.fm listeners, come to know quickly, links for streaming audio are anything but consistent.

Squeeze: Black Coffee in Bed. I was a teenager when Squeeze were at their prime, so I was a bit too young to personally connect with their songs - witty, sour, forlorn, sometimes all that and more, at once - but loved them all the same. They got more applause than sales at the time, but at least their material holds up so well. Stream it here.

Tinted Windows: New Cassette. Deliberately retro in tone and title - a paean to the cassette? Really? - this is a song by what's been called a supergroup, which I guess is plausible. There's a Cheap Trick, a Smashing Pumpkin, a Fountain of Wayne and ... a Hanson. Hmmm. It's a power-pop sound, for sure, but I'm not inclined to shell out any money for it. Listen to it here.

Swing Out Sister: Breakout (live). I didn't actually much care for Swing Out Sister, an act that got caught up in the jazzy scenester trend that came out of the U.K. 20-odd years ago. (Cocktails, turtlenecks, shades ... you know the drill.) However, this live recording of Breakout, their biggest hit, caught me in the right mood today. If nothing else, it shows they were no studio act. Stream it here.

Kai Winding: Dirty Dog. There aren't many jazz trombonists; Winding sometimes recorded with one of the few others, J.J. Johnson, but here is solo, with a sound that is perfectly placed for 1966. You can just imagine hep cats doing the Watusi ... or Batman and Catwoman doing the Batusi, for that matter. Stream it here.

David Bowie: DJ. From Lodger, Bowie's song about disc jockeys is evergreen, even though the whole business of being a radio jock has changed completely, and most kids today think of "DJ" as a verb as much as a noun, and even then, the radio is not really part of the equation. On Blip.fm, the users are all called DJs ... a symbol of the democratizing, amateur ethic that makes the web work these days. Oh, and the Bowie song is still great. Listen here.

Weekend playlist (blipped)

I've been having a lot of fun lately with Blip, which combines a social network approach with streaming audio. I'm still missing Pandora, whose service was yanked from Canadian ears a while back. Blip is coming close to filling the void that Pandora offered, of letting you personalize an ongoing audio feed based on your requests.

Here are some of the songs I've posted (that's blipped, as is the custom) lately to my own Blip account. The linked parts will take you to the audio, so you can play it yourself.

Billy Stewart: Sitting in the Park. A soul chestnut that I've been playing a lot this year. Readers across the Atlantic may know Georgie Fame's pretty decent cover, but the original is a slice of Sixties excellence.

Richie Havens: Here Comes the Sun. One of the songs I played this morning, to match the sunny skies in St. John's. One of my favourite Beatles covers, to boot.

Robert Palmer: Looking for Clues. Well before the models-with-guitars thing, Palmer was a few good years ahead of the curve; 1980's album Clues remains a favourite, with edgy synths, humour and a funky feel. Looking for Clues still gets singalong treatment in the car.

 

The Fratellis: Chelsea Dagger. Speaking of singalongs ... Of the bands appearing in Britain over the last few years, I like the Fratellis a lot. I bet Chelsea Dagger goes over well live.

Pat Metheny: Above the Treetops. The opening track of Metheny's great 1992 album Secret Story, this is built around a Cambodian choir. I'm used to hearing the segue with the next track (the more propulsive Facing West) come immediately afterward, so I added that too!

Weekend playlist (finger-snappin' edition)

It's a beautiful day in St. John's, after a pretty uneasy week; I'm heading out soon, and here a few of the tunes pushed to the top of the iPod.

The Champs: Tequila. Four seconds of this, and I can't help but snap or tap my fingers.

Al Hirt: Bourbon Street Parade. Another chestnut - kinda corny, but hard to resist the pep.



Allen Toussaint: The Bright Mississippi. Fresh off the KCRW podcast wagon, a sparkling song for spring ... from a very different climate than what we in St. John's have to endure for weeks to come!

Talking Heads: Walk It Down. From Little Creatures, one of the singalong David Byrne songs.

Tuck & Patti: I Wish. Actually, no Patti here, just Tuck Andress, running through the Stevie Wonder song on an acoustic guitar ... and sounding like a full band.

Weekend playlist

It's been a pretty domestic weekend: Nick always has the seam-busting social schedule, and while Saturday was chockful with activity, we laid low today and puttered about the house. Some recently acquired music fit the mood right on the nose.

Van Morrison: Madame George. Morrison's brand-new Astral Weeks: Live At The Hollywood Bowl completes what apparently has been a long-time dream of his, to perform his classic 1968 album with a full string section and the complex orchestration that he had intended all along, but couldn't afford at the time. Not sure yet how well it works out. Glad to have the record, but maybe it's because the original songs are so well known, the new versions certainly feel far from definitive. (And does the world need yet one more live Van album?) Nonetheless, I can see this growing on me over time. [Photo from Anna_T's stream on Flickr.]

Neko Case: People Gotta Lotta Nerve. One of my favourite songs so far this year, from Case's new Middle Cyclone album. It arrived in the middle of February from KEXP's song of the day podcast. She played the tune for Jay Leno earlier this week; click below to see that. 

Bruce Springsteen: Outlaw Pete. The opening track from Working on a Dream is an eight-minute tall tale about a criminal who "at six months old [had] done three months in jail." I love this album, so I've been hearing Outlaw Pete a fair bit as I crank it up. (The opening track seems a bit threatened, in this iPod-friendly age.)

Junior Walker and the All-Stars: Tune Up. From a Mojo compilation called Motown Nuggets, which largely has album tracks and singles that get overshadowed in the Motown-Tamla canon. This is a fine instrumental; sounds like a theme song to a Sixties show that never existed.

Eurythmics:  Love Is a Stranger (Coldcut Remix). It might seem I'm on a Dave-and-Annie jag, given another Eurythmics tune made the last list I did, although it's really coincidence. I went looking, actually, for the Martha Wainwright cover of Love is a Stranger on iTunes (been holding off on getting her new record, which, I know, I shouldn't) and found this instead. The remix has a much bigger sound than the original, although it dates back to 1991, when the duo Coldcut laced it with a house vibe that was everywhere at the time.

Weekend playlist (with a horn section)

I noticed something earlier this weekend when I was playing random tunes: I was far more likely to let the tunes with horn sections play through, and skip the others. Hmmm. My 10-cent theory? Horns - preferably a combination of trumpets and sax - liven up everything, particularly when it's too cold or nasty to do much outside.

Here are five of the songs I played this weekend.

Ray Charles: Shake Your Tailfeather. Organ opens the song, the bass hooks you, the vocals make everyone want to sing along ... but the horns make you want to obey what Ray tells you to do. (You know, bend over, shake your tailfeather, twist it, etc etc. The ideal song for making dinner, I might add!)

The Beatles: Savoy Truffle. Never had the opportunity to sample any of the confections in this White Album tune, but I've always enjoyed the horn chart. Six players teamed up for the sax parts.

Van Morrison: See Me Through/ Soldier Of Fortune/ Thank You Faletinme Be Mice Elf. Van Morrison has always understood what horn sections can do to a song. If I recall, Morrison writes his own horn charts himself. This is a 10-minute medley from the Night in San Francisco double-CD set, which I've lent out plenty of times and bought a few times too, considering it one of the best live albums I've ever bought. For this tour, Morrison's band included Candy Dulfer on sax (who does a ripping solo here) and Kate St. John on oboe.

Eurythmics: It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back). From Be Yourself Tonight, which (sorta) introduced a little soul flavour into the austere synths and such of Eurythmics. 

Martha Reeves & The Vandellas: Nowhere to Run. A song so potent Gerri Hirshey picked it for the title of her very fine book on the history of soul. One of my favourite Motown tracks of them all. Have a look for yourself; I believe that's Dusty Springfield setting up the performance on Ready Steady Go, the UK hit program: 

Weekend playlist: snowstorm edition

Some of the songs I've been playing lately, including today, a very snowy but wonderfully quiet day in St. John's.

Megapuss: Theme from Hollywood. Devandra Banhart's side project, with Greg Rogrove, sounds pretty loose, to judge this tune which shipped out this week from KCRW's top tune podcast. Apparently they write the title, and then the song to match. A lot of fun.



Andrew Bird: Fitz and the Dizzyspells. Another podcast pickup this week, in this case from KEXP. A bright tune, with whistling that doesn't make you cringe.



Erma Franklin: Piece Of My Heart. An impulse buy a few weeks ago was the Something to Believe In set that Starbucks issued, I assume to tie into the Obama inauguration. It collects 15 songs from black American milestone performers. I knew Piece of My Heart from Janis Joplin's version. According to the album notes, Joplin got the idea to record the song after hearing Erma Franklin sing it.

Paul Weller: Uh Huh Oh Yeh. As I noted here last week, I've been feasting on the four-CD set of Paul Weller at the BBC, which has all manner of recordings: bare acoustic recordings, one-offs, studio performances wrapped around interviews, live gigs in concert halls. This one is a 1993 performance of Weller's first key solo single, from a show at Royal Albert Hall.

Todd Rundgren: I Saw The Light. From Something/Anything, which came out too early for me to appreciate at the time (1972), but which I picked up as a university student, in the mid-80s. It knocked me out, if only because Rundgren did pretty much all of it himself.

Weekend playlist

It's been too cold to do much of anything outdoors, which has made for a good weekend to get some stuff done around the house. (Too bad not too much got done, but that's another story!)

Some of the songs playing around the house this weekend:

 

Chris Difford: Up the Junction. One of Squeeze's mainstays covers his own tracks, as it were, with a tune picked up from a recent Q insert disc. Less wonderful than the original, but great to hear the voice. 

The Killers: Spaceman. From the new Day & Age, the Killers move again into dancefloor territory, which is fine by me. Spaceman seems like it was made to be played for people driving home at night. (It's hard not to tap your hands on the wheel.)

Coldplay Feat. Jay-Z: Lost+ . The plus sign tacked on to the title of Lost is significant; this is an alternate version of the Vida da Loca songs included on Prospekt's March, an EP of odds and sods released before Christmas. There are multiple versions already around, each with a different bit of punctuation. No matter: it's a cool tune, this time with Jay-Z, in the unlikely collaborator dep't, guesting.

Laura Veirs: Don't Lose Yourself. She has a thin kind of voice, but Laura Veirs has grown on me.

Hot Chocolate: Every 1's a Winner. This must have been subsconscious work pushing itself to the surface. For an unknown reason, I tapped Hot Chocolate's name into the iTunes on my computer - presumably, I thought, to listen to this full-bore slice of late-disco funk and power chords. Actually, it then occurred to me, what I wanted was not so much Hot Chocolate but the real thing. I'm on my way now to heat up some, to get through a cold winter's night.

End-o'-holiday-weekend playlist

Our last festive dinner - an early feed for Ukrainian Christmas, honouring that part of my wife's heritage - will begin in a few hours. Otherwise, we're savouring the winding down of the Christmas holidays. (We're very much a 12-Days family, incidentally.) Here are some of the non-holiday tunes I've been playing lately.

Lindsey Buckingham: Underground. I'll put Gift of Screws up as my pick for an album of the year. Even though I bought in late in 2008, I've been playing it over and again, and it sounds like I've had it for years.

Primal Scream: Beautiful Future. Primal Scream albums for me are kind of hit-or-miss. Beautiful Future is a hit. (I probably subconsciously picked this next, as the album includes an unlikely but terrific cover of Over and Over by Fleetwood Mac - see above. It features folkie goddess Linda Thompson.)

Fleet Foxes: He Doesn't Know Why. I'm late getting to Fleet Foxes. Is this what all the young gents around town with shaggy beards are listening to? Just curious. (It seems peculiar to see guys born in, say, 1986 dressing like it's 1976.)

Kate Bush: Why Should I Love You?  An odd Kate Bush tune, which is saying something; it was a collaboration with Prince that apparently didn't go too well. It was released on 1993's Red Shoes album, after Prince changed his name, although the credit went not to that weird glyph but to plain old Prince. Contractual language, I guess. You can listen to what is claimed to be the original pre-Prince version here. It also lacks Lenny Henry speaking a section of the lyrics, which can be good or bad depending on your take of things.

The Rolling Stones: Tumbling Dice. One of my favourite Stones songs; I could listen to the last 1:14 or so repeatedly.

Weekend playlist

A couple of new singles get this week's playlist going. Click on the link below to see other playlists posted to this category.

Chris Isaak: Graduation Day. We're going to see Chris Isaak play downtown in a couple of hours; Sarah Slean is opening for him. We have pretty good seats, so I'm looking forward to the show. Among the songs I'd like to hear is this gem from 1995's Forever Blue.

Keane: Spiralling. Hmmm. The single from Keane's forthcoming album sounds like a throwback to Eighties synth-pop, a la Howard Jones; disappointing to these ears, especially since Keane were getting pretty adventurous on their last album.

Lucid Dreams: Franz Ferdinand. More satisfying. Franz Ferdinand are expected to release their third album by January. There have been suggestions of a more percussive sound with African musicians, but this single, which was released on iTunes a few weeks ago, is a rack-'em-up rock tune in line with what they've done before. That's not a bad thing!

Sade: Paradise. A bass line for the ages, and the song sounds sinuous and fine 20 years later.

Zach Gill: Beautiful Reason. Picked up a couple of weeks ago from KCRW's podcast. Gill is a Jack Johnson collaborator, which isn't surprising; this song, as a sampler, has a laid-back groove. I've hit replay a few times with this one.

(Long) weekend playlist

We hit the road for 10 or 11 days on vacation. Keeping us sane alone the highway was my iPod, which I stuffed with some favourites, new picks and overlooked tracks. Here are some of the songs that shuffled up a few times.

Joe Jackson: Another World. From Night and Day, a peppery blend of percussion, piano and bass, and a singalong chorus that works for even the most off-key voice. (I should know.) The B-side to Stepping Out, incidentally. (Hey, parents of young children! Ask your kid what a B-side is!)

Fleetwood Mac: The Ledge. Have I mentioned recently how good Tusk is? Yep, the Rumours followup was megahyped at the time, and disappointed a great many, but I still play a lot of the songs, especially Lindsey Buckingham workouts like this two-minute tune that sounds like it could have been knocked out by an indie band this year.

Sarah Harmer: Around This Corner. I could listen to Sarah Harmer sing the phone book, but it's even better with her own material, including the kind-of-loopy bit with the clarinet a couple of minutes in.

Lizband: Belly Painting. Liz Pickard (or Solo, I guess) and co. at their best. This turns out to be a great driving song, especially along stretches of highway lined with pines.

Bonnie Raitt: Feeling of Falling. For one reason or another, the supposedly random nature of the shuffle option on my iPod served up this track from Longing in their Hearts frequently. No complaints here. I always like the bluesy, funky vibe on this song, which suits the summer really well.

Click on the Weekend Playlists tag below to see other lists posted here.

Weekend playlist

Some covers, and a tune that sounds like a cover but is not, are included in this week's playlist ... or tunes that have been playing on my computer, earbuds or speaker this week.

The Chimes: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Scotland's The Chimes put some some soul into U2's anthemic hit, and made it a cover that holds up well to the original. Which is a pretty decent compliment.

Sugarland: Life In a Northern Town (Live). I understand this cover has been a radio hit this summer in some places. I would have thought the Dream Academy had made a song that's so autobiographical it's almost beyond covering ... especially by younger musicians from the U.S. (and from southern towns, at that).

Linda Ronstadt: You're No Good. Linda Ronstadt did such a definitive take on this Clint Ballard song (which I still really like, even though I'm not the biggest Ronstadt fan) it's hard to imagine anyone else, let alone the fact that the song had been around for years before she recorded it.

Flight of the Conchords: Inner City Pressure. Not a cover, even though it sounds like a Pet Shop Boys song that got away. And it's funny, although you probably need to see how it appeared in the TV series (click here) to really appreciate it. My favourite lines (about counting pennies at the 7/11): "The manager, Bevan, starts to abuse me/ 'Hey man, I just want some muesli.' "

Booker T. & The MGs: Time Is Tight. Subconsciously, I think, the Chimes had put me in the mood for something from the Booker T. songbook; up came Time Is Tight, one of their best ... and, lest we forget, a full-blown 10 Ten hit from 1969. Click below to see a live recording from about that period; it's too bad the video quality is subpar.

Weekend playlist

Been a few weeks since I posted a list of tunes I've been playing; too busy, I guess, to type some notes. Here, randomly, are a few of the songs that have been playing in the earbuds or in the car lately.

Taj Mahal: Bound To Love Me Some. I could play Taj Mahal over and over ... and do, come to think of it.

Rod Stewart: Seems Like A Long Time. From Every Picture Tells a Story, which I heard a lot around the house while I was growing up, and am still quite fond of to this day. I'm impressed that Stewart made his best work - the early solo albums - while he was still recording and touring with the Faces.

The Farm: Groovy Train. One of my favourite summer songs by a band that looked, for a couple of seconds,that they were going to stick around.

Kirsty MacColl: Children Of The Revolution. From Electric Landlady, a song about bombs, destruction, wreckage and refugees that is heartbreaking and hummable, with a guitar backdrop by Johnny Marr.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! It's nice to see that Nick Cave is a) still with us and b) still wonderful. The album of the same name came out this spring.

Weekend playlist

A little rock, some jazz, a bit of ska with a townie twist ... all bits on the playlist this week.

Radiohead: Reckoner. From In Rainbows, a favourite built around clanging percussion and a hypnotic guitar figure, and a singalong vocal from Mr. Sunshine himself, Thom Yorke.

Idlers: Guns Of Navarone. "In 2007, the Idlers took the music from the Skatalites ... and gave it to the townies." So goes the setup to this faithful cover by the St. John's ska band, from last year's album Corner. I really like the Idlers; I knew Guns of Navarone from the Specials, which were huge for my generation, so it's cheering to see a young band reaching back even farther, and playing with so much energy besides. The pic above was lifted from Graham Case's Flickr page.

T-Bone Burnett: Kill Zone. It's not Brian Wilson's Smile, but give T-Bone Burnett credit for completing his new album, Tooth of Crime, a long-delayed project to create a musical complement to an early 1970s play by Sam Shepard. An indication of the long gestation: this song was cowritten by Roy Orbison, shortly before his death in 1988. For all the world, the song sounds right out of Orbison's work, with Burnett himself sounding very similar.

Anita Best & Pamela Morgan: Lowlands Low. A while back, a friend living away asked me to pick my top Newfoundland album; I would probably change my mind several times over the months, but I picked The Colour of Amber, which holds up as a deeply satisfying piece of work.

Jim Hall: Baubles, Bangles and Beads. From 1971's ... Where Would I Be?, one of my favourite jazz guitar albums. The stuff Sunday mornings were made for. I first learned about Jim Hall when I was collecting Ella Fitzgerald records; I ought to resume my search for more of his material. It never disappoints.

Weekend playlist ('That's hot' edition)

Saturday was conspicuously warm in St. John's ... it wasn't that hot, it's just that the preceding weeks have been so cold. Noticing that two of the newer songs on my iPod have a thematic link, I went looking for more. Apologies to Paris Hilton.

The B-52s: Hot Corner. The B-52s have a new album, Funplex, and pretty much the same sound and look that have served them well (for some reason, though, they dropped the apostrophe in their name, which I guess shows that it took about three decades to understand how a possessive works). It's nice to have a toe-tapper again, but ... well, don't they age?

The Detroit Cobras: Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat). This came from a CD tucked into Uncut some months back, paying tribute to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. Proof, if nothing else, that rock is alive in someone's garage.

Bina Mistry: Hot Hot Hot. What wedding or Christmas dinner-n-dance would be complete without an awkward run-through of "feeling hot! hot! hot!"? Among the versions out there, I like this curried take on the Bend It Like Beckham soundtrack.

Hot Chip: Ready for the Floor. Nerdy look, non-melodic vocals, great hooks.

The Bosshoss: Hot Stuff. Yes, the Donna Summer song, getting the Bosshoss countrified workout. Not as hilarious as, say, their wink at Britney Spears's Toxic, but fun enough.

Billy Idol: Hot In The City. When did Billy Idol go from a semi-credible punk guy to a I-wanna-top-the-charts dude? About around here, I would reckon. "Straaaanger ..."

Sly & The Family Stone: Hot Fun In The Summer Time. More appropriate for August, I would guess, than the tentative warmth we get in May, but an AM radio favourite from my childhood. I'm still amazed to think that some people thought this song, or Dancing in the Streets for that matter, was code for rioting.

Level 42: Hot Water. A song from a period in the 80s when it was acceptable, if not fashionable, for semi-mulletted men to wear paisley shirts, long scarves and red jackets.

Weekend playlist

A bit of jazz, a few golden oldies, and the return of Portishead are on this week's playlist.

Tito Puente: Take Five. The rip and roar that Puente's band puts into a cover of the Dave Brubeck Quartet classic is so energetic, it's tempting to consider it the default. (Tempting, but not enough. Paul Desmond forever!) A lot of fun.

Dire Straits: Skateaway. From Making Movies, one of my favourite album tracks of the early 1980s. A slow build and very cinematic in its feel.

Portishead: Deep Water. I bought the new album, Third, which is the first album of new work in 11 years. Poor Portishead got saddled with having arrived at a key modern musical style years ahead of others, and, worse, getting saddled with a "dinner party music" reputation, which is hardly fair. I've played Third through a couple of times, and it's different, in several ways. Deep Water sticks out the most: I actually thought it was Beirut, with a ukelele arrangement.

McCoy Tyner: Lazy Bird. From an Atlantic piano compilation I bought around 1991, when I was beefing up my CD collection (not the wisest move, in retrospect!) and widening my jazz appetite. McCoy Tyner fits most any weekend mood I've ever had.

John Lee Hooker: Dimples. Last month, I picked up an Uncut feature on the Rolling Stones, which came with a compilation CD featuring 15 early blues, R&B and rock tunes "that fired up" Mick, Keef et al. The CD was worth the cost of the mag.

Weekend playlist (backing vocals edition)

This weekend's playlist has a thread in common: tunes featuring well-known singers chipping in the backup vocals. They're from, roughly, the same period, with the Robbie Robertson song coming a bit later.

Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy. Linda Ronstadt stands out on this dark, dark slice of boppy pop (a junior prom date that goes murderously wrong); Jennifer Warnes and Karla Bonoff provided harmony vocals behind Zevon.

Robbie Robertson: Fallen Angel. A deeply felt tribute to Richard Manuel, the late singer and pianist who played for years with Robertson in The Band, Fallen Angel gets its emotional anchor from Peter Gabriel's supporting vocal. Speaking of Gabriel ...

Peter Gabriel: Games Without Frontiers. Kate Bush sings the "jeux sans frontieres" chorus; not as famous as her appearance on Don't Give Up, but I always think of that as a duet.

Rough Trade: Crimes of Passion. Carole Pope may have had a vivid writing style, but a limited (sub-octave? maybe) singing voice. Bruce Cockburn puts some oomph into Rough Trade's tale of kinky crime. Cockburn later recruited Pope to return the favour on Making Contact.

Steely Dan: Time Out of Mind. Michael MacDonald made several appearances on Steely Dan songs, particularly in the early years; for this highlight from Gaucho, he's one of several instruments that blend in a tight, near-perfect arrangement.

Weekend playlist

Fairport Convention: I Heard It Through The Grapevine. The Norman Whitfield-Barrett Strong classic gets a surprisingly gritty treatment on this live recording, featuring Richard Thompson. A long ways from the dulcimer-n-fiddle sound I might have expected.

The Police: The Bed's Too Big Without You. What makes an album a classic? Well, after almost three decades, I still love listening to Reggatta De Blanc, and almost every track.

Hot Chip: Made in the Dark: The title track from the electronica band that resists the electronica label. Which makes sense, as they don't sound much like other outfits with synths and drum machines.

The Flaming Lips: The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song. I don't think I'll be able to listen to this song again without thinking of a shrieking Brent Bambury. Before last week's show from St. John's, Bambury used an edited loop from this song - basically, with the lyrics chopped out, except for the "yeah yeah yeah" bits - to get the audience on the go, as it were. It worked: a couple of hundred people trying to harmonize, if that's the word, with Wayne Coyne's scales.

Lorraine Bowen: Julie Christie. This showed up this week in the KCRW Top Tune podcast; it apparently has been kicking around since 1997, and showed up almost a decade ago on the soundtrack of Anne Wheeler's Better than Chocolate. It's playful and kitschy; with lyrics like, "Julie Christie / She makes me go misty," how could it not? KCRW picked it from a new collection called Far Out: Swinging Bachelor Pad Music. Who said lounge was dead?

Weekend playlist (new tunes from old faces)

I do try to keep up with new tunes ... honest. But I'll confess to being much like any music fan: I know what I like, and I'm more inclined to listen to something new from an old favourite, rather than something new from someone new. This week, a roundup of tunes I've picked up in the last few weeks from artists, some of whom I haven't heard much from in years.

Van Morrison: How Can A Poor Boy? First up, Mr. Happypants himself. The new Van Morrison record, Keep It Simple, is bluesier than most. I read the lyrics before putting on the CD, and pretty much needed a drink just after that. The music, by the way, is terrific ... another fine Van Morrison album that will likely drift by without getting much attention.

The Rolling Stones featuring Buddy Guy: Champagne & Reefer. Speaking of the blues ... We went to see Shine a Light, the Martin Scorsese documentary film made at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan in late 2006, and just out now. It's very good. One of my favourite moments was this Muddy Waters cover; the Stones are fine, but Buddy Guy nailed it it for me, with a wicked smile, fiery guitar and of course that voice.

Sheryl Crow: Love is Free. Crow's new album, Detours, is the best I've heard from her in years. She certainly has something to say: tirades about the Iraq war, a fierce song about fighting cancer, a lament for a broken marriage. The album, though, is not a downer. It's hard not to tap your fingers to a tune like this.

Billy Bragg: I Keep Faith. More pop than politics from Bragg. I downloaded the single a week when it was released, and will likely pick up the new album, Mr. Love and Justice, after it comes out later this month. This is up there with his best.

k.d. lang: I Dream Of Spring. lang's new album Watershed was recorded in simple circumstances - at her own home, for instance - and that sound comes through. It's a great record for reading ... not a raveup, then, but it's good.

Was (Not Was): Mr. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. I held off on buying the whole new album - Boo! is the title - but liked the sound of the sample of this to spring for a buck on it. Nice to hear the "brothers" are back in form ... sounding like the break of the last 16 years hadn't happened. This tune is, evidently, a Bob Dylan cowrite.

Weekend playlist

As dinner cooks on the stove, a few words about what's been simmering on the iPod.

Art of Noise. Beat Box. Much of what you hear on Beat Box - the stabbing samples, the rumbling synthesized basslines, the snip-snip editing - became cliches, but here it was all daringly pulled off. I didn't take Art of Noise all that seriously at the time (I didn't think you were supposed to), but in retrospect, it's clear how influential they were.

James McMurtry: No More Buffalo. James McMurtry has been releasing material for about two decades; he has earned his wings through the roots-Americana-whatever-label-you-like arena and deserves a bigger audience. He inherited his storytelling skill honestly; his father is writer Larry McMurtry, who spun a few stories out of horizons and open roads himself.

Michelle Shocked: Come A Long Way. That song made me think of this, for some reason (they're the same generation, and both from Texas ... maybe that has something to do with it); one of the good songs on Michelle Shocked's Arkansas Traveler album, which stretches across a slew of genres. This one (about a repossessed motorcycle and a mythically long trip around Los Angeles) rocks harder than the rest, and is a great bit of writing.

Yael Naim: New Soul. The non-Feist song that Apple is using to move product these days. Also a darn snappy tune.

Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy and Paul Weller: John Barleycorn. From a Word magazine compilation of this winter, a fighting take on an English standard. Raise your glass.

Weekend playlist (Love Will Tear Us Apart covers edition)

I believe I first heard Love Will Tear Us Apart in the fall of 1980, on CBC Radio's 90 Minutes with a Bullet, if memory serves, but I stand to be corrected. There weren't many avenues to hear a song like that in that pre-video, pre-web era. I was a teenager at the time, and was morbidly fascinated that Joy Division's singer, Ian Curtis, had killed himself just a month after the song came out. If the song might have seemed like a sneer of a retort to the sunniness of the Captain and Tenille, Curtis's death put it in another context. Curtis's young widow had the title of the song engraved into his headstone.

Over the years, the song has gutted me more than once, as my adult self understood and appreciated the song so much more.

Love Will Tear Us Apart has had a remarkable life of its own. It's now regarded as a classic, and likely will last for the ages. It's certainly been covered enough times, which is what this week's playlist is all about.

Damhnait Doyle: Love Will Tear Us Apart. The idea for this set comes from Dav's new album Lights Down Low, a colletion of covers. My first reaction on hearing this tune was, Why bother? It's similar enough to the Nouvelle Vague cover (see below) that I felt it was a bit of a retread. The cover, though, has grown on me, and I quite like the rest of the album, which Doyle put together with producer Danny Michel. (Any chance of a hometown concert soon, Dav?)

Nouvelle Vague: Love Will Tear Us Apart. The French hipsters opened their 2004 debut album - a set of covers with a bossa nova style of new wave songs (nouvelle vague loosely works as a translation of both, with a nod to French cinematic history - with this reworking of Joy Division, exchanging the thundering bassline with plucked guitars and chiming percussion.

Paul Young: Love Will Tear Us Apart. Paul Young was everywhere in 1983. No Parlez reinvented Marvin Gaye and other soul gems, but also made me (and I'm sure many others) look at Love Will Tear Us Apart differently. It was no longer a Joy Division recording, but a song.

Calexico: Love Will Tear Us Apart. My favourite of the lot. Available on a 2005 Starbucks compilation called Sweetheart, it's a streamlined rendition, but as rhythmic in its own right.

Hawksley Workman: Love Will Tear Us Apart. A B-side from about five years ago. Workman gives the song a dirge of a slowdown. Available through iTunes.

Vitamin String Quartet: Love Will Tear Us Apart. Speaking of iTunes ... I rummaged around the store, sampling a wide variety of covers. This one - from an album called the Gothic Wedding Collection - is part of a series of string quartet arrangements of modern songs, from Enjoy the Silence (Nouvelle Vague got there first, too, with a carnival treatment) to Orinoco Flow to - unlikely as it is for a wedding album - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. I liked it enough to buy the works.

New Order: Love Will Tear Us Apart (iTunes Originals Version). I also found that New Order last fall did an iTunes Originals series, reworking some of their own material, as well as revisiting the main legacy from Joy Division (in part, I imagine, because of the Anton Corbijn film Control). A very energetic cover of their own work, down to the keyboards and bass.

Click on the link below to see other playlists.

Weekend playlist

Here are a few of the songs that have been playing around the house over the last few days.

Van Morrison: Sweet Thing. It's a sweet thing, indeed, to be able to turn someone on to some music you know they'll love. A family member did not have Van Morrison's Astral Weeks in his collection, which I think was to change this weekend, following a rave of a description. I'm still agog to learn that the backing tracks were recorded in a matter of hours, with Morrison working astonishingly quickly with the jazz musicians he hired; strings, winds and other touches were added later in overdubbing, which in the case of Sweet Thing proved to be pretty important.

The Heavenly States: Lost in the Light. The new album from this California band was released - sorry, dropped, to use the apparently obligatory language of today - a few weeks ago. KEXP issued this tune a few days ago as a teaser. That worked ... it's great.

Joan Armatrading: Mama Papa. I bought Armatrading's latest album, Into The Blues, as a stocking stuffer for my wife this Christmas. It's great to hear her back with new material, and with that voice.

New Order: Your Silent Face. What 1983 sounded like, as a I recall. The hypnotic synthesizers sounded so much more interesting than the peppy synthesizers that were absolutely everywhere at the time.

The Waterboys: Church Not Made With Hands. From A Pagan Place. A debut that holds up pretty well. I - wrongly, as it turned out - expected future Waterboys material to follow suit.

Click on the link below to see other playlists posted to this queue.

Weekend playlist

All of the songs on this week's playlist came into the house through what I used to call alternate means, but which now are standard: sampler CDs, podcasts, borrowed discs. All these tunes, though, are keepers.

The Helio Sequence: Keep Your Eyes Ahead. Has a bit of an Arcade Fire vibe (what doesn't, these days?), although that may not be fair; this duo has been around for years. This tune is from a brand-new album, and is terrific. I picked it up from KEXP's daily song podcast.

Sondre Lerche & Regina Spektor: Hell No. A sultry duet, from the soundtrack to the Steve Carrell movie Dan in Real Life.

The Bird & The Bee: Because. Or as they sing it, "Because, becuase, because .." ... repeatedly. I thought it would be annoying, but it turned into a bit of a brainworm. I should break down and just buy the album, after picking up a few songs hither and thither.

British Sea Power: Waving Flags. An epic sound to this track, which bodes well for the new album.

Julian Cope: Can't Get You Out Of My Country. I liked Julian Cope a fair bit 20 years or so ago; then he disappeared into a bit of a haze, coming out of it in recent years. This is from a compilation CD called Give Peace a Chance that Uncut magazine issued with its January edition. I like this one for its cheeky swagger.

Weekend playlist (covers edition)

Cover versions: some work, some don't. Some, occasionally, are amazing. A variety make up this week's playlist:

Bryan Ferry: Positively 4th Street. Bryan Ferry has built a whole part of his career around cover versions, since the Seventies. Dylanesque, which he released last year, recasts 11 Bob Dylan songs; it's a very listenable album, as odd as it is to hear Dylan's words come with Ferry's silk-smooth style. Oddly enough, Positively 4th Street sounds more bitter or at least forlorn that it did originally.

Jann Arden: Downtown. I have a lot of respect for Jann Arden, and not just for her singing. Her Uncover Me album is a bit daring, in that she takes on songs that are a bit untouchable, like Son of a Preacher Man, or don't exactly scream out for a new rendition, like Love is a Battlefield. Her take on Petula Clark's Downtown is nostalgic and sweet.

John Lennon: Stand By Me. Lennon recorded this for Rock and Roll, a mid-career album that came only a decade or so after the Beatles had been grinding out one R&B cover after another.

Billy Bragg: Walk Away Renee. Not quite a cover, since Bragg merely lifts the melody to accompany some spoken lyrics that are among his funniest, and most poignant too ("And then one day it happened. She cut her hair and I stopped loving her.")

Kaiser Chiefs: I Heard It Through The Grapevine. From the Help! A Day In The Life  fundraising album for Warchild, an indie raveup of a take on Marvin Gaye's classic.

Click below for other posts in this list.

Weekend playlist

Some hype that rings true, a Bowie gem and a rom-com-sparked re-release are among this week's playlist.

Vampire Weekend: Walcott. Vampire Weekend got a remarkable amount of pre-release hype before their debut album was released at the end of January ... and it's deserved. To me, anyway. The comparisons you'll hear about - Paul Simon, Talking Heads, etc. - add up, too.

Badly Drawn Boy: The Time of Times. Out this week, Damon Gough has reworked an album track for the forthcoming romantic comedy Definitely Maybe. Definitely listenable.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Rich Woman. From Raising Sand, a hypnotic romp of an old tune, with a fine, swampy atmosphere.

Neko Case: Deep Red Bells. Last year, Case released Live From Austin TX, an album made from a set for the Austin City Limits TV program. It was recorded in 2003, though, which means, of course, that newer material won't be on it. No loss, though - she sounds amazing.

David Bowie: TVC 15. An evergreen gem from the Seventies. 

I post a playlist here every weekend; click on the links below to see more.

Weekend playlist (recycling edition)

Every other Saturday, I spend a bit of time - as much as an hour, it seems - in the garage area, sorting through recycling, getting garbage bagged up, tidying things up. My iPod never seems more valuable than getting through more tedious chores. Here are some of the songs that have been on that playlist lately.

Dave "Baby" Cortez: The Happy Organ Cortez. Included on a compilation of Fifties and Sixties tunes, this two-minute-long instrumental is both cheesy and exhilarating. It comes in a small dose, and is hard to resist. It apparently is the first single to make commercial use of the electric organ; it went to No. 1 in 1959.

Curtis Lee: Pretty Little Angel Eyes. Another mono-era classic, and hard not to sing along with ... including any or even all of the harmony parts.

Björk: The Dull Flame Of Desire. Some years ago, I remember causing one of those stinkbomb moments at a party when I said I didn't much care for Björk. The others, evidently, did. Oh well. Things haven't much changed over the years. The Q best of 2007 album included this track from Volta, a duet with Antony Hegarty of a plodding song that lifts its lyrics from a Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev poem. Oddly enough, I let it play through.

Deodato: Also Sprach Zarathustra. Speaking of surprises, I've been getting a kick out of this Seventies flashback: the funkified workout of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, post-2001. My head goes into shades or orange, brown and purple just thinking about it ...

The Submarines: Peace and Hate. The L.A. duo are a bit cute, but are worth checking out. (Their MySpace page is here.) Melodic and very hummable.

I post a list of about five songs here every weekend. Click on the links below to see past entries.